I consider myself to be a pretty good story teller. I often find myself sharing stories of events that I have witnessed or experienced to friends and family. Sometimes, when I feel that I have a good enough idea, I will write a my own story varying from the six sentence length of a flash fiction to a 50,000 word novel. Writing, like any other creative outlet, is an escape from reality. With reading, one can dive into an author's world and experience it as if it were their own. In writing, the author commonly struggles to create a believable new world that allows the audience to feel and see things differently. To me, writing is not only a wonderful escape from the pressures of the world, but a creative outlet which helps me express and expose my deepest emotions.
This all started when I was about six years old and found a dead bird in my backyard. I told my mother that I wanted to burry the bird and have a little funeral for it. So, later that day, my mom dug a hole in the backyard and we held a funeral for the bird. As she covered the cardinal’s red feathers, I pulled a piece of folded paper out of my pocket. My mother stood above me, with her hand on my shoulder, as I began to read, “It was a young cardinal...” and so on. After I finished, my mom asked if she could keep the paper because she liked it so much. She still has that piece of crumpled, faded paper. In that moment, I did not understand the importance of this seemingly meaningless transaction. However, looking back, I realized that what I wrote meant something to someone. My words reached out and touched my mother in a way that I could not understand as a child.
A few months later, my brother had an English assignment and he asked for my help. He was tasked with writing a story. I was still about six then. That night, my father was making spaghetti so I began to tell the tale of a flying spaghetti monster that would chase down kids if they did not do their chores. Clearly, the imagination of a child is one that knows no bounds. I do not recall what grade my brother received on that assignment, but like my eulogy for the cardinal, my mother still has a copy. After this point, my brother continued to encourage me to use my imagination and write down any good ideas that I had. In return he would do the same. Whenever either of us would produce something that we were proud of, we would share with one another. This "story time" with my brother is why I continued writing. In these moments we would share together, I learned to appreciate the work of an author. I knew how hard it was to produce a story. I knew that sometimes what you wrote just wasn't that great. But every bad piece of work is a stepping stone on the way to creating something significant.
As the years went on, I continued to write on and off when time allotted. When I was a sophomore in high school, I signed up for a creative writing class. I needed the elective credit and it seemed like it would be a decent class. During my time in creative writing I and creative writing II which I took the following year, I really honed my skills and in my opinion became a better story teller. In my time in these classes, I wrote countless short stories, flash fictions, and even two novels. I take my knowledge of writing stories and use it when I am telling them. I tend to be very descriptive and often dramatic which is often rather humorous to my audience. One of my friends was walking through the halls and was asked if she had seen the fight earlier in the day to which she replied, “No, I didn’t see it, but Alex Carlson told me about it so it was like I was there!”.
My teacher for creative writing I and II also became a big influence and supporter of my work. She is a freelance writer and has a few pieces of poetry that are published. From the very beginning she was a fan of my work and encouraged me to just produce work, even if I thought it was terrible. She told the entire class to be like guppies and just produce pieces of fiction of poetry as if it was our duty. I struggled with this idea of just mass producing insignificant pieces of work. I could not hand in something that I was not proud of mostly because it did not mean anything to me and it certainly was not going to mean anything to my audience. Eventually, this stubborn attitude sort of became my identity. When it came time to ask teachers for letters of recommendation, I knew to ask my creative writing teacher. One day, in class, she asked me if I would be insulted if, in my recommendation, she compared me to an elephant. Naturally, I was flabbergasted but then she explained the comparison to me. "I encourage all of my students to be guppies and just produce and produce even if they are just going to be small insignificant little beings. But whenever you are given an assignment, you process it for a while, work for long periods of time on it, and then eventually you hand me a piece of work. Elephants," she continued "gestate longer than any other animal on this planet. But when they finally produce something, it is a grand, magnificent, and significant animal. So you, are like an elephant, not a guppy. You don't make 500 tiny little baby fish, you make one large, beautiful free standing elephant." I remember just sitting there, a little flattered, but mostly stunned. But now, I am forced to live up to this high expectation. I'm pressured to create significant pieces of work, but I don't mind the pressure. Pressure either breaks you or makes you.
The ability to write in a creative manner has helped me throughout the years. Whenever it came to a picture prompt or a creative essay, I felt like my hand was being controlled by my pen. My thoughts and ideas would come out onto the page and I often was proud of the results. My ability to think of out of the ordinary ways to tell a story especially helped when I was applying to college. I sat at my desk and just stared at the blank white screen on my iPad. My thoughts were as blank as the page in front of me. I thought, how can I make my essay stand out from the others? How can this essay show my out of the box thinking and interesting perspective on life. So, I thought, why not write the essay from an interesting perspective? Then the ideas started flowing and I typed away until I reached a page. One page that described my character, personality, and work ethic all told from the perspective of my word processing application on my iPad. A few months after I was accepted to URI, I got a call from an English professor here who told me that when she read my essay, she was very impressed and expressed her interest in having me as a student. I felt honored, a college professor was impressed with my work. I signed up for her class like she asked. In that class, I'm pressured to live up to her expectations of me. Because of this pressure, I now strive to succeed in her class.
Writing has been a part of my life since I was six years old I am now eighteen and still find myself writing flash fictions or short stories. I plan to write until carpal tunnel or arthritis catch up with me. I might decide to minor in it, but I know that a career in writing is extremely unlikely. I once heard someone say that "Writing is a crummy profession, but a good hobby." This is true for most amateur writers, like myself, who know that they will never be the next Shakespeare or Hemingway or write the next billion dollar book series like J.K Rowling. Chances are, I will probably never even have a book published. Writing and telling stories is something that I do for fun. It just so happens that sometimes, my words mean something in a way that I would have never been exposed to had I not continued to pursue this passion.
I consider myself to be a pretty good story teller. I often find myself sharing stories of events that I have witnessed or experienced to friends and family. Sometimes, when I feel that I have a good enough idea, I will write a my own story varying from the six sentence length of a flash fiction to a 50,000 word novel. Writing, like any other creative outlet, is an escape from reality. With reading, one can dive into an author's world and experience it as if it were their own. In writing, the author commonly struggles to create a believable new world that allows the audience to feel and see things differently. To me, writing is not only a wonderful escape from the pressures of the world, but a creative outlet which helps me express and expose my deepest emotions.
This all started when I was about six years old and found a dead bird in my backyard. I told my mother that I wanted to burry the bird and have a little funeral for it. So, later that day, my mom dug a hole in the backyard and we held a funeral for the bird. As she covered the cardinal’s red feathers, I pulled a piece of folded paper out of my pocket. My mother stood above me, with her hand on my shoulder, as I began to read, “It was a young cardinal...” and so on. After I finished, my mom asked if she could keep the paper because she liked it so much. She still has that piece of crumpled, faded paper. In that moment, I did not understand the importance of this seemingly meaningless transaction. However, looking back, I realized that what I wrote meant something to someone. My words reached out and touched my mother in a way that I could not understand as a child.
A few months later, my brother had an English assignment and he asked for my help. He was tasked with writing a story. I was still about six then. That night, my father was making spaghetti so I began to tell the tale of a flying spaghetti monster that would chase down kids if they did not do their chores. Clearly, the imagination of a child is one that knows no bounds. I do not recall what grade my brother received on that assignment, but like my eulogy for the cardinal, my mother still has a copy. After this point, my brother continued to encourage me to use my imagination and write down any good ideas that I had. In return he would do the same. Whenever either of us would produce something that we were proud of, we would share with one another. This "story time" with my brother is why I continued writing. In these moments we would share together, I learned to appreciate the work of an author. I knew how hard it was to produce a story. I knew that sometimes what you wrote just wasn't that great. But every bad piece of work is a stepping stone on the way to creating something significant.
As the years went on, I continued to write on and off when time allotted. When I was a sophomore in high school, I signed up for a creative writing class. I needed the elective credit and it seemed like it would be a decent class. During my time in creative writing I and creative writing II which I took the following year, I really honed my skills and in my opinion became a better story teller. In my time in these classes, I wrote countless short stories, flash fictions, and even two novels. I take my knowledge of writing stories and use it when I am telling them. I tend to be very descriptive and often dramatic which is often rather humorous to my audience. One of my friends was walking through the halls and was asked if she had seen the fight earlier in the day to which she replied, “No, I didn’t see it, but Alex Carlson told me about it so it was like I was there!”.
My teacher for creative writing I and II also became a big influence and supporter of my work. She is a freelance writer and has a few pieces of poetry that are published. From the very beginning she was a fan of my work and encouraged me to just produce work, even if I thought it was terrible. She told the entire class to be like guppies and just produce pieces of fiction of poetry as if it was our duty. I struggled with this idea of just mass producing insignificant pieces of work. I could not hand in something that I was not proud of mostly because it did not mean anything to me and it certainly was not going to mean anything to my audience. Eventually, this stubborn attitude sort of became my identity. When it came time to ask teachers for letters of recommendation, I knew to ask my creative writing teacher. One day, in class, she asked me if I would be insulted if, in my recommendation, she compared me to an elephant. Naturally, I was flabbergasted but then she explained the comparison to me. "I encourage all of my students to be guppies and just produce and produce even if they are just going to be small insignificant little beings. But whenever you are given an assignment, you process it for a while, work for long periods of time on it, and then eventually you hand me a piece of work. Elephants," she continued "gestate longer than any other animal on this planet. But when they finally produce something, it is a grand, magnificent, and significant animal. So you, are like an elephant, not a guppy. You don't make 500 tiny little baby fish, you make one large, beautiful free standing elephant." I remember just sitting there, a little flattered, but mostly stunned. But now, I am forced to live up to this high expectation. I'm pressured to create significant pieces of work, but I don't mind the pressure. Pressure either breaks you or makes you.
The ability to write in a creative manner has helped me throughout the years. Whenever it came to a picture prompt or a creative essay, I felt like my hand was being controlled by my pen. My thoughts and ideas would come out onto the page and I often was proud of the results. My ability to think of out of the ordinary ways to tell a story especially helped when I was applying to college. I sat at my desk and just stared at the blank white screen on my iPad. My thoughts were as blank as the page in front of me. I thought, how can I make my essay stand out from the others? How can this essay show my out of the box thinking and interesting perspective on life. So, I thought, why not write the essay from an interesting perspective? Then the ideas started flowing and I typed away until I reached a page. One page that described my character, personality, and work ethic all told from the perspective of my word processing application on my iPad. A few months after I was accepted to URI, I got a call from an English professor here who told me that when she read my essay, she was very impressed and expressed her interest in having me as a student. I felt honored, a college professor was impressed with my work. I signed up for her class like she asked. In that class, I'm pressured to live up to her expectations of me. Because of this pressure, I now strive to succeed in her class.
Writing has been a part of my life since I was six years old I am now eighteen and still find myself writing flash fictions or short stories. I plan to write until carpal tunnel or arthritis catch up with me. I might decide to minor in it, but I know that a career in writing is extremely unlikely. I once heard someone say that "Writing is a crummy profession, but a good hobby." This is true for most amateur writers, like myself, who know that they will never be the next Shakespeare or Hemingway or write the next billion dollar book series like J.K Rowling. Chances are, I will probably never even have a book published. Writing and telling stories is something that I do for fun. It just so happens that sometimes, my words mean something in a way that I would have never been exposed to had I not continued to pursue this passion.